The Impact of COVID 19 on the Customer’s Car and SUV owning preference

The Indian Automotive Industry suffered immensely owing to the pandemic hit 2020. Our reports provide key insight into the Impact of COVID 19 on the Customer’s Car and SUV owning preference.

The effect further gets amplified when it comes to the Indian passenger vehicle industry, as the degrowth seemed to be at 17% in CY 2020 when compared to CY 2019.

Categorically, the car segment witnessed a 21% degrowth, whereas the SUV’s stood at 3%, MUV at 23%, Van at 26% in the CY 2020 when compared to CY 2019.

The SUV segment offered a wide pool of choices to the customers to choose from as it put forward 34 models. Even the Cars segment was a cut above as it had a stack of 43 options in its segment. Overall share as occupied by SUV and Car segment stood at 28% and 59% respectively.

Maruti led the Market with its commanding hold of 50% in 2020. The indigenous brand Tata too enhanced its market share to 7% from 5%. The market wasn’t favorable to the likes of Mahendra and Honda as they faced a lag of 2% market share in the Indian PV segment.

Sedan’s saga of its below-par performance continued to haunt itself, as it loosened its grip in the Indian PV segment. It has lost its 14% segment share from 2014. The worst happened in 2020, as the degrowth took the exponential rise to 46% when compared to 2019.

As per the existing market bifurcation, the Indian PV industry has been differentiated as Affordable, Valueplus, Premium, Luxury, and High-end.

The Premium segment has evolved as an eye-catcher for the Indian customer base. The luxury segment on the other hand faced one of its worst low due to the COVID 19.
The value segment stands tall as the largest segment in India. As the new customers have more craving to pay for the design, Comfortability and cutting edge technologies.

The SUV segment has gathered much more attention than Cars in the Value plus segment, and the key reason for the same is the wide availability of models and the price it is offered at. Despite the pandemic, SUVs faced a marginal 12% degrowth in 2020.

Car Models Penetration:

The affordable Segment sales shot up by 2% in 2020 compared to the previous year.

The Premium SUV segment proved to be the most attractive, as its segment share almost tripled in the previous 6 years by going up to 76% from 29%, but yet the 12% degrowth troubled this segment too in 2020.

The luxury segment continues to have a firm hold and is dominating the SUV models by amassing 87% share and it even faced very minimum degrowth by 36% in 2020 compared to 2019.

The most preferred Indian brand Maruti elevated as the market leader in the Value Plus car segment with a 65% market share. Even the TATA motors eyed on this segment and eventually took up their market share by 4% in 2020.

Hyundai and Kia held 25% and 11.5 market share in the SUV Value plus segment. The Premium car segment offered a fair chance to all the manufacturers as Maruti held 73% in MUV, Honda 45%, Hyundai at 60% and Mahendra managed to get a 22% market share in 2020.

Presently, Customers are offered a decent number of options to own an SUV in an affordable Segment. And Maruti continues to dominate this segment by a whopping 75%

Toyota’s indomitable hold in the High-end SUV segment seems no stopping as it has occupied almost half of the total market share. And Hyundai is also now less in this segment and is leading the segment from the front.

The contribution from the New models stood at 16% Market share in 2019 and it doubled its numbers in the year 2020.

Maruti Suzuki’s new product has contributed 17% market share in the Affordable car segment. Kia Carnival absolutely had no rival to compete in the High-end MUV Segment. Recently, the SUV premium segment has gained pace in the Indian PV industry. Kia, though a new entrant into the Indian market has stunned its rivals by getting the tag of a Market Leader with a 19% market share in 2020, and this almost is double the value of what it accomplished in 2019.

Tata Altroz, which amazed the Indians with its extremely good build quality took up its market share by 3% in 2020 in the value plus segment in 2020.

The value plus SUV segment was not fortunate enough to have major growth in 2020, as Hyundai and Kia models noted a 29% market share in 2019 but this went down by 27% in 2020.

Kia has created a formidable position for itself in the Indian Automobile arena as it shoots up its market share from 19% to 35% in just a year from 2019 to 2020, and this truly is an astounding achievement.

Compact SUV Sales Trend: